


Technique

by celli



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Morning After, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 19:43:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18784927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: Rodney's fine with a one-night stand. John's fine with Rodney being fine. Everything's fine.





	Technique

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesireeArmfeldt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/gifts).



> Thanks to O, M, and S for brainstorming and beta assistance!

John woke abruptly. He was flat on his back as usual, but with a dip in the mattress next to him, and his covers were rolled around the lump causing the dip. He also appeared to be naked. John stared at the ceiling. The lights obligingly came on just enough to make out the criss-cross pattern of the metal beams above him...a different pattern than the parallel lines of the beams in his own room. He blinked and the lights brightened further.

“Stop it, lights off,” Rodney mumbled next to him and rolled to bury his face in John’s neck. The lights flickered and went out. Rodney grunted triumphantly into John’s shoulder and a corner of the covers fell over John’s chest.

John stayed still, forcing his breathing in and out in time with Rodney’s, until Rodney started snoring. Then John slid out of bed, felt around in the dark for his uniform (digging under the bed for an errant sock), and let himself out the door. It closed silently behind him.

***

John’s jaw was sore from clenching it by the time Rodney hit the locker room for their mission later that day, but Rodney didn’t shout at him or freeze him out or do anything other than give him an absent-minded smile and strap his gear on. John waited for Teyla and Ronon to head out, then sidled over.

“Uh, Rodney?”

Rodney looked over. “Yeah?” he asked, casually. Totally casually. Totally not invested at all casually.

“Good luck,” John said, and escaped.

***

John was distracted by trying to look at Rodney while not looking like he was looking at Rodney, but he snapped right to attention when the leader of M7G-915 held up two rings, shining brightly in the afternoon sun.

“...so as you can see, you must be joined in our ceremony before you can enter the temple,” the woman said.

“Again?” Ronon asked.

John, with a little thump in his heart he was absolutely not paying attention to, started to step forward, but Rodney grabbed Ronon’s wrist and dragged him across the town square towards the temple. “Fine, fine, let’s go. I have devices to examine and time waits for no scientist.”

John was left with one foot forward, frozen.

***

“Bring it in here,” Rodney said, gesturing wildly.

John, Ronon, and Teyla hefted the box, covered with circuits, through the door of the lab and into the center of the room.

“Great. Zelenka!” Rodney yelled and bent down to look at the bottom of the box. Teyla and Ronon watched him start muttering to himself and left; John took a step towards the door, then a step back, then just stood there, shuffling his weight back and forth. 

Rodney stopped muttering and looked up. “What?” he asked, still sounding normal. Well, distracted, but normal. 

“Do you need me to--” John pointed at the box.

“We’ll call you, I want to look at something first. Thanks,” Rodney said. “But really, where is Zelenka?”

John hovered a moment more, then left.

***

“So Rodney seems fine,” John said, smacking his stick against Teyla’s. 

Teyla didn’t respond, but made a feint John was hardly fooled by and a strike he easily countered.

John looked over his shoulder quickly, but the room was still empty except the two of them. “That’s the nice thing about Rodney, he always tells you what he thinks.” Smack, smack. 

He parried her attack.

“And he has no reason to hide anything. Not that he would have anything to hide. About anything. Which is why it’s fine that he’s fine.”

She lifted an eyebrow and attacked again.

He defended himself, then looked over at her. “For God’s sake, are you taking it _easy_ on me?”

Teyla dropped her arms to her sides and walked past him. “Your technique is terrible when you lie,” she said. 

John sputtered. “I’m not lying!” he yelled after her. “And my technique is great. My technique is _phenomenal_!”

***

Everything was fine, John thought as he sat on the edge of the pier, looking out at the ocean. Rodney was fine. John was fine. Everything was fine.

Life was exactly the same as it had been two days ago, before he’d lost his mind and kissed Rodney, before Rodney had apparently cared just enough to sleep with him but not enough to be bothered by it the next day. It was like a bad dream, or a time loop. All he had to do was go back to being that person he’d been two days ago.

He put his head in his hands.

***

John was sitting on Rodney’s bed when Rodney entered his room. Rodney, to his credit, only shrieked a little.

“Didn’t expect to see you back here,” he said in a voice John was starting to suspect was _too_ casual. “Or is this another pre-mission pep talk?”

John stood up, walked across the room, and kissed him.

“Nope,” Rodney said, although he waited until they came up for air to say it. “Nope, I am not doing wake up alone, pretend we’re just buddies, sneak sneak sneak bullshit.”

“Maybe I don’t want to either.”

“Maybe you don’t want to? Perhaps you’d rather not? Possibly you wouldn’t like--”

“Rodney,” John said. He put his hands on Rodney’s face and kissed him again.

Rodney grabbed John’s jacket and hung on to him, but when John let go, Rodney took a step back. “Please don’t mess with me,” he said wearily.

“I don’t want to sneak out.”

Rodney stared up at John. “What does that mean? You don’t want to but you will? You don’t want to but you’ll try? You don’t want to so you won’t?”

John shuffled back a step and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m scared of how much I want to stay,” he said, barely audible.

“I can--” Rodney took a deep breath. “I can work with that.”

“I hope so,” John said. “Because apparently I have terrible technique when I lie.”

Rodney laughed. “Your technique is phenomenal, Sheppard,” he said. He wrapped his arms around John and leaned into the kiss.


End file.
